What I want for Mother’s Day: Let political protest, not saccharine commercialism, define the holiday

By Kirsten Swinth

|New York Daily News|

May 12, 2019 | 5:00 AM

Mothers against the war. (Boston Globe/Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Fifty years ago, Mother’s Day was a day of protest. In Washington, D.C. and across the U.S., women gathered, demanding “Rights, not roses!” Protests erupted again two years later on Mother’s Day 1971. Feminists marched in front of the White House to demand universal child care from our nation’s leaders. Pushing buggies and strollers, mothers and children sang out together, “Power to the mothers! Power to the children!”

A Mother’s Day where mothers and children chant and demonstrate together? The flower stall around the corner, my trusty favorite restaurant, and even my local Pilates studio have spent weeks trumpeting their Mother’s Day promotions. A typical celebration means flowers, presents and way-too expensive meals. For many, the day is an exercise in penance. Not shown enough love? Spend more money to prove your devotion.

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This commercial Mother’s Day, however, has little to do with what Mother’s Day has been, and what it ought to be. Mother’s Day has a long tradition as a day of protest. The first Mother’s Day Proclamation in 1870 called on mothers to fight to end all wars in the aftermath of the horrifying death toll of the Civil War.

Ever since, mothers and children have made Mother’s Day a day of protest. In 2000, some 750,000 people showed up in Washington to demand gun control in the Million Mom March. Last year, more than a dozen marchers died in Nicaragua as that country’s “Mothers of April” remonstrated against the deaths of their children in anti-government protests. This year, in London and elsewhere across Europe, Mothers Rise Up! has organized a massive Mothers’ Climate March to demand climate justice for their children.

Here in the U.S., it is time to take to the streets to demand justice for mothers, and by extension for all of us. The reality is that mothers in the U.S. face systematic discrimination. Motherhood perpetuates the gender pay gap. Mothers remain especially vulnerable to domestic and partner violence. The terrible pay of child care and domestic workers belies the lip service we pay motherly love. Behind pronouncements of American devotion to “mom and apple pie” lies devaluation of the hard work — the physical and emotional labor—of mothering.

We should start with paid family leave that mandates sharing it equally among partners so men as well as women do their fair share. Enact stronger protections against discrimination so pregnant workers can carry water and use the bathroom as often as they need. Sexual harassment policies should include awareness that mothers on every kind of job get harassed. (How many nursing mothers have endured crude comments?)

Next comes living wages for housework, as well as for caregiving. For those who do this work for pay, we should rise up in shame that more than 90% of child-care workers do not earn enough to support themselves, let alone their own children. Supporting unions that represent caregivers and organizations like the National Domestic Workers Alliance is a good first step. For those who spend lives caring for children and homes without pay, universal basic incomes and a family allowance modeled on programs in Europe and elsewhere could provide the floor below which no family should fall.

Finally, we must spread the labor. Over the last 50 years mothers have transformed their lives. Women are putting in more hours at home and on the job, but in too many cases, men have not stepped up. In heterosexual households with preschool children, women spend 10 more days a year on child care than men do. Studies show that it’s better for children, that it’s better for equality, and even better for men when they do more.

I despise Mother’s Day for the deluge of saccharine but vacuous paeans to selfless mother love. Don’t get me wrong, I love the sweet missives from my children that enshrine their clumsy handwriting and genuine devotion. But after that, I am done. I prefer rights to roses.

Swinth is a professor of history and American studies at Fordham University.